4 Things we learned about Microsoft 365 Education from the Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact study

IT Professionals working in education have their own set of unique challenges. Through our conversations with you, we have learned that you need a solution that will support your students, your faculty and staff, as well as your peace of mind. I love talking with IT leaders working in education because, as they describe their goals, I get inspired – every time! We believe education is so critical to the future of our children, our communities, and human society. It is so rewarding to work on technology that delivers the most important outcomes: enhanced and accelerated learning experiences.

In July 2017, we released Microsoft 365 Education to do two critically important things: Improve the education experience for students and teachers, and avoid overburdening or overbudgeting IT. Microsoft 365 Education combines the tools, capabilities and services that students, teachers, and IT teams need to be more effective and efficient – and it packages them together at an affordable cost.

Here’s more information you should know about Microsoft 365 Education:

The student-use benefit saves schools money by providing student licenses at no additional cost when institutions purchase for faculty and staff

To better understand the value of Microsoft 365 Education, we commissioned a study conducted by Forrester Consulting – you can read it here – to identify and measure the educational and financial outcomes realized by schools that adopt Microsoft 365 Education. I wanted to share some of the outcomes from that research that really got me inspired. These results show the impact Microsoft 365 Education has made on the students and teachers who used it.

Here’s what Forrester discovered, by the numbers:

84%: The amount of time saved when setting up classroom devices (this translates to about 2.5 hours per device),

216:The number of reclaimed hours per teacher, per year.

$51: The amount of money saved per student via the student-use benefit.

Forrester conducted interviews with school leaders, IT directors and educators across five school districts in and out of the U.S., each with their own set of unique challenges in meeting the demands of their districts. Four key themes emerged from the study. Forrester also included some of the quotes they collected from our customers during the interviews.

Improve student outcomes

“We have seen a 10% improvement across the board – test scores, competencies, and concurrent enrollment participation. And, it is only our second quarter using Microsoft 365.”

A 10% increase in test scores in under 180 days! Forrester’s research found that schools choose Microsoft 365 Education because they want to give students the modern tools they’ll need to be successful. Forrester found that Microsoft 365 Education enhanced student engagement, gave those students anywhere-access, and helped them develop 21st century workplace skills.

Fuel classroom efficiencies

“Nothing replaces good teaching, and Microsoft 365 gives teachers the tools they need to be better at their jobs.”

In their research, Forrester identified that both teachers and students use Microsoft 365 Education to get more done in the classroom. For example, Microsoft 365 Education’s automation freed teachers from having to manage ongoing administrative tasks (thus giving them more time to develop personalized learning for their students).

Overall, these teachers reclaimed up to 216 hours of their time per year. With this much extra time, students and teachers were able to modify resources, assignments, and experiences to meet individual learning styles.

Accelerate educators’ goals

“We are providing more online courses and webinars for staff than ever before using Skype for Business. We also use Skype for Business for curriculum conference calls.”

Teachers used Microsoft 365 Education outside the classroom to enhance decision making, collaboration and professional development. They set up Teams to share knowledge and collaborate while keeping even the most remote members in the loop. They used Power BI to combine and visualize data for better problem solving. They remotely participated in teacher trainings to offset travel costs.

Save IT time and money

“There were no security events on student devices this year. In the past we had them every week. Technicians would have to reimage a machine or clean it up. Cleaning it could take several hours.”

According to Forrester, IT appreciated the time-saving and cost-reducing capabilities built into Microsoft 365 Education. For example, Microsoft 365 Education made it possible to reduce the need for infrastructure, simplify device set-up and management, provide students licenses at no additional cost, decrease integration challenges with built-in features, and meet stringent security and privacy requirements.

By moving to Microsoft’s secure data centers, IT could use the money saved on infrastructure maintenance to pursue higher value projects. These costs were also predictable thanks to low-cost SaaS fees. The comprehensive licenses were also incredibly helpful because they included device rights, management control, and security features which helped enhance IT efficiency at no additional cost.

Intune for Education was used to reduce the time it took to fully configure a device by 84 percent (or 2.5 hours per device), and those organizations that purchased licenses for all of their faculty and staff received student licenses at no additional cost (via the aforementioned student-use benefit), a savings of $51 per student per year.

Additionally, schools used the savings from the student-use benefit to buy more devices, helping improve their device-to-student ratios.

It is exciting to see the value Microsoft 365 Education can bring to schools, both inside the classroom and outside of it. If you have recently moved, or are planning to move, to Microsoft 365 Education, Forrester’s Total Economic Impact study is a helpful tool that provides you with a framework to evaluate the potential benefits and costs of adopting Microsoft 365 Education.